


your name is vax'ildan

by sparxwrites



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Depression, Experimental Style, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Love Triangles, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22869031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparxwrites/pseuds/sparxwrites
Summary: okay. so, your name is vax’ildan, right? and you kind of want to die.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 57





	your name is vax'ildan

okay. so, your name is vax’ildan, right? and you kind of want to die.

it’s not a big deal - really, it isn’t. because you’re not _suicidal_ or anything, because you’d _never_ , because you have a sister you love more than life itself that you’ve got to be there for. and sure, you throw yourself head-first into danger without stopping to look, without thinking, but that’s just how adventuring goes, right? if you die trying to save someone else, if you die in a fight, if you die from some poorly considered plan with the barest chance of success, it won’t be your fault, won’t be _deliberate_ , so it’s fine (you know you’re lying to yourself, vax’ildan, don’t you? you’re very good at that).

so, it’s no big deal, that you kind of really want to die, but it also kind of colours every little thing you do.

(the words _i imagine death so much it feels more like a memory_ spring to mind, sometimes, and, though you can’t quite remember where you first heard them, they feel _right_.)

you’re not sure when you started feeling death like an open door just a half-step in front of you. there was your childhood, with your mother, a hazy blur of warm colours and idealism. there was your adolescence, with your father, and then… well. somewhere between adolescence and adulthood, you started keeping death pressed close to your chest, and started learning the skills of a rogue - how to be silent and unnoticed, how to play with knives (eventually, how to play with knives without hurting yourself). maybe the two are connected. maybe not.

those are not the kind of skills one learns without reason, vax’ildan. who were you trying to hide from? maybe the owners of the shops you stole from, after you ran, in an attempt to feed yourself and your sister. maybe your father, with his sharp words and absent heart and occasionally raised hand. maybe yourself.

it doesn’t matter, really, does it? here you are, an adult, tethered to life largely by your sister (you’re not quite sure how to tell her she’s most of the reason you’re still alive), and a little bit by your friends, and not really by anything else. you’ve long since learnt to play with knives (you call them _daggers_ , now) without hurting yourself (though sometimes you miss it, the clean pain of it, the bloody lines they drew over your hands and forearms as you fumbled). you’ve long since learned to disappear.

so here you are, vax’ildan, an adult, a bleeding heart cut open on all the sharp edges of the world, a cracked vase, and you can’t seem to stop spilling love from every inch of you no matter how hard you try. you love so fiercely, and so wholly, and so _easily_ , that when you have to choose (keyleth or gilmore, gilmore or keyleth) it tears you almost in two, rips you open until you’re not sure whether that’s love or _blood_ that’s pouring out of your open wounds.

you hate with equal fervour, though, when you need to - percy, for hurting your sister, for hurting your _everything_ , for oh-so-nearly untethering you (which scares you, vax’ildan, doesn’t it, the prospect of living, or not, without her?). she’s the only thing holding you to this earth, your sister. you’d die for her in a heartbeat, because… 

well. you refuse to say it, refuse to even think it (that you’d be dead without her, vax’ildan, be honest with yourself, death has been with you like an old friend since long before you became Her champion), but you’re not sure what you’d do without her. you don’t want to _find out_ what you’d do without her.

you can never hate for long, though. the love pours out in waves, and the guilt of trying to hold it back strangles you, and you let go, inch by inch.

(your father is the only one you make an exception with your hatred for. you hate him, and he hated you first, and that’s all there is to it. you try not to think about it. you try to forget him. there’s no redemption for him, no change, no magical moment where he’ll suddenly realise you’re worthy of his love and respect, though your sister thinks otherwise. so it’s best to ignore it all. to forget the hurt that claws at your insides, forget the desperation for his approval that gnaws on your heart like a hungry fox, pretend it’s not even there at all. pretend your adolescence under his _gentle guidance_ hasn’t left scars across your soul and a deep, hollow sadness you can’t quite put words to.)

(if you refuse to acknowledge it, vax’ildan it’s not there. that’s how this works, right? you play make-believe at not giving a shit and maybe, one day, those cracks down all the way down to the soft, bleeding insides of you will just… disappear. you’ll get better at being _strong_ , like your sister, because you’re sure if you tell yourself you’re not sad and tired and a little bit ready for death enough times, you’ll mean it one day. if tell yourself that all those years of neglect and rejection mean nothing to you, you’ll mean it one day.)

(you try to ignore the feeling, vax’ildan, that all you’re getting better at is lying to yourself.)

but back to _death_ , vax’ildan, because you’ve not talked about that enough, have you? death is everywhere, with you, in your past, your present, your future - in your religion, your thoughts, your _heart_. your mother died, all those years ago, to the breath of a dragon you’re soon going to kill (or die trying, and you’re not sure which option you hope for more). your sister-by-blood died, recently. your brother-by-bond died, even more recently (you sat close to his corpse all night and watched kynan, watched the shake of his hands and the flat of his eyes and the familiar, oozing hollow in his chest, and kept the knives away from him for while). all of you might die, soon, to the same flames as your mother.

you feel Her hands on you, every time you think of death, cold and soft as raven’s feathers. you feel Her hands more and more with every passing day.

perhaps that’s why you give kynan your knives, as soon as you’re half-sure he won’t use himself as target practice for them. perhaps why you give him simon, too, because (let’s be honest, vax’ildan, you think _because he’ll need it more than i do, soon,_ but you say-) you’ve got a vestige, now, you hardly need a belt. why you go to see gilmore, love leaking from every pore no matter how hard you try to hide it, your cracks splitting wider, longer, deeper every time he smiles at you, and say _goodbye._ because you might (because you’re _going to_ ) die, soon, and it’s best to be… prepared.

(you watch gilmore’s eyes, when you say goodbye, and see the same soft, heavy fear your sister’s used to hold when you played with knives, back in syngorn. you think, perhaps, he knows.)

(when he says, _come back to me, vax’ildan_ , you _know_ he knows, and it’s like he’s lifted the weight of the world from your shoulders and crushed you, all at once. someone’s noticed. someone’s _noticed_. you’re… you’re not sure what to do with that.)

so! anyway. here you are, vax’ildan, on your way to kill a dragon, or die trying. and you are _scared_ , vax’ildan - because if you die trying, who will protect your sister, your friends, your _family_?

but… _but_. if you don’t, vax’ildan. if you _don’t_ die (despite all your preparations, despite all your goodbyes, despite the years and years of _waiting hoping wanting fearing_ ), if the dust settles and thordak is dead and you still stand, victorious, _alive_ (and without a plan, you planned for death, but not for this, not for what comes next), and are left to lick your wounds and count the dead and _carry on living_ …

what, vax’ildan, do you do then?

**Author's Note:**

> Some context to this: about halfway through CR1, it became the Done Thing for a while to complain about how Vax was whiny and annoying. I had some Opinions about this, and bled them all over a post with this strange half-fic half-essay. Which, at this point, is 3 years old, but I still love it, so it's going on AO3.
> 
> As ever, more strange maybe-fanfic can be found @sparxwrites on tumblr.


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